Just wanted to check on the importance of the foot well airducts the run from the well in either side to above each head light via a very stiff annoying tube that is always getting damaged. Only function to tube air from front car to foot well, so could dump tubes if I want?
Tube is rigid and breaks

 

One way of answering is to point out that Jaguar deleted the vents early in Series III production....except on the tiny percentage of cars that were built with 'heater only' rather than climate control.

I see no harm in removing the tubes and blocking the duct work, personally

Cheers
DD

 

I expected that would be the case, but too often I'm the one who removes the pin and finds out what the grenade does later..

 

Your not Robinson Crusoe there Aden, I spent yesterday replacing some "useless" wiring I removed in the early stages of restoring my old Morris. Discovered on my first night excursion the car had no dash lights.

The car had a feature to allow you to turn of the dashlights (why, I dunno) and I did not identify the weird little toggle switch as factory vs just another piece of previous owner weirdness.

 

As a matter of interest, the Jaguar/Daimler has such a facility. There is a toggle switch in the centre dash panel that turns the instrument lighting on or off.

 

did they ever do a switch that changes the greenish illumination to red?

 

Maybe those switches were pre-rheostat? i.e. If the dash lights dazzled you (however unlikely!) you could turn 'em off.

 

The series 1 has a dim & bright switch for the dash lights next to the separate park light & headlight switches. Even with the dash panel lights switched on they won't work unless the park lights or head lights are on.